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Pursuant to its mission to reclaim early music for contemporary audiences, Ensemble Voltaire presents engaging concerts of Baroque chamber music. Gifted musicians, skilled in playing period instruments, bring their rich understanding of the repertoire and culture of the period to bear on each time-bridging performance. At ease with today's audiences, Ensemble Voltaire brings the Baroque period to life with story and even humor, subtly surrounding the listener with the cultural context from which the music emerges.
In 2004, they changed their name to Ensemble Voltaire after French literary genius Voltaire (1694-1778), who lived during the Baroque period from which much of the group's music is taken. The change was designed to help audiences within and beyond Indiana better connect to the historic era that inspires the group's music making.
The Ensemble has performed, under the auspices of Early Music America, at the 1999 Boston Early Music Festival; at the Bloomington Early Music Festival; the University of Western Michigan; the University of Michigan (Dearborn); Fermilab; DePauw University; Saginaw Valley State University; and Hanover College. Other venues have included the Detroit Institute of the Arts; Unity Temple (Chicago); Iowa City Early Keyboard Society; Society for Old Music, Kalamazoo; The Morton Arboretum, Chicago.
Ensemble Voltaire has received critical acclaim for its compact disc (The Motets of Francesco Antonio Bonporti, with Ellen Hargis, soprano); BMG named the recording one of its 1998 Editors Picks.
Current projects include the on-line release of trio sonatas by Reinhard Keiser, preparation for a CD release of chamber music by Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach and Johann Gottlieb Janitsch, and a collaborative, multi-year Bach cantata project with the Indianapolis Baroque Orchestra.